Help Elok understand the ongoing Russia ... thingy

[Dinner]

So Assange (not Russian) leaked Hillary's e-mails (exhaustively pored over, nothing all that damning, known for months before the election), which were in fact hacked by Russian Intelligence (would be criminal if Trump were involved, have not heard claims or evidence of such), then talked to the president of a (non-Russian, heavily hyped) company which was also retained by Trump though they supposedly decided to use RNC data instead. IIUC Clinton could have used this Cambridge Analytics, but chose not to. And now, a guy who is linked to Russia also talked to them about doing something. What's the import of this? If they're such hot stuff, I'd expect lots of people asking to employ them.

EDIT: No, they offered to help Assange. Still not all that unexpected.

Assange is a Russia stooge. Other groups have hacked his email since the 2016 election and ge was coordinating directly with the Russian government.

[Dinner]

Because he's not a rational actor and never has been? Russians were nice to him--they hacked the mean woman--and he's basically psychologically incapable of acting against his flatterers. He couldn't disavow the Charlottesville Nazis, and they're fricking poison. But they like him, and people who like him have good judgment and are good guys. Et cetera.

Putin had personal animus towards Hillary for the sanctions she organized after the Russian invasion of Crimea. She was also seen as competent where as Putin viewed Trump as a compromised ass clown who was very likely to undermine American alliances and thus damage the coalition against Russia for invading several of its neighbors.

[pchang]

Putin is trying to influence every election in the West that he can. Since our reaction to his actions are so limited, there is no down side for him.

[Jon Miller]

And Trump is refusing to implement even the limited bipartisan reaction.

JM

[Dinner]

Illegally refusing to implement. I mean those sanctions passed 98-0 in the Senate so it was as bipartisan as possible yet mysteriously Trump has just ignored it. Isn't it funny that we know Manafort discussed sanctions being repealed in exchange for Putin's unlawful help and... Trump seems to be breaking the law to fulfill that very bargain?

[Aeson]

Battle of the memos!

[-Jrabbit]

Bottom line is pretty simple: Trump has been acting guilty from the get-go.
His are not the actions of an innocent man.

[Elok]

Oh, I'm sure he's guilty of lots of things. But since I don't believe Putin could have had a significant impact on the election while remaining undetected--nor would he have been stupid enough to trust Trump of all people to keep a promise once he'd got what he wanted out of the deal--I don't find this particular accusation credible. I can believe that Trump is being blackmailed (assuming that there is anything they could have on Trump that would actually undermine his base support or get him really impeached) or that he perceives Russia as being on his side and, in his moronic way, is therefore keeping his hands off. It also seems possible, if not probable, that there was illicit money transferred and maybe some dodgy business deals involving real estate in Siberia. Like I said, he's a wretched person.

[Dinner]

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/tillerson-us-already-seeing-signs-interference-2018

Putin already has a disinformation campaign running for the 2018 election.

[Dinner]

Today, the lawyer for Gates officially requested that his client be removed from the joint case against both him and Manafort. This is the surest sign yet that Mueller has flipped him and that Gates has now agreed to turn state's evidence against Manafort.

[Elok]

On sort of related news, the stupid orangutan's approval rating is up to 40.7% on fivethirtyeight. About as high as it was almost a year ago. Overall trend is damn near horizontal. Depending how you do the cutoff, you could argue it's long-term upward. This d-bag could not be more hapless, and four out of every ten people think he's doing well. I'm not sure why anyone thinks there needed to be a conspiracy to get him elected over Hillary.

[-Jrabbit]

The key thing to remember is that the investigation (Mueller's) is fairly wide-ranging. All I've ever wanted is for that probe to continue unabated to its natural conclusion, and for the American people to be informed of WTF went down.

With Trump and family, it's probably more about money laundering and self-enrichment than anything else. But the fact that there are foreign powers involved makes it a national security matter, whether or not the candidate/POTUS knew or was directly involved. If there's "no collusion, no obstruction," so be it. If there is, so be it.

But regardless, the public has a right to know what kind of oligarch they elected, and to what extent he and his people are fvcking with our country and our "democracy" for his personal gain.

[Dinner]

On sort of related news, the stupid orangutan's approval rating is up to 40.7% on fivethirtyeight. About as high as it was almost a year ago. Overall trend is damn near horizontal. Depending how you do the cutoff, you could argue it's long-term upward. This d-bag could not be more hapless, and four out of every ten people think he's doing well. I'm not sure why anyone thinks there needed to be a conspiracy to get him elected over Hillary.

The proven false memo did give him a slight bump along witg all the lies surrounding it. As it was designed to do among low information people.

[Aeson]

40% is pretty abysmal for a first term president 1 year in riding a bull market after a tax cut.

[Sava]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/feb/08/icc-claims-crimes-against-humanity-duterte-philippines

Does this help?

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